(Pot roast with the ubiquitous bread dumplings.) Some of the other places had free tables, but Jan and Liba think they're saving them for foreigners, whom they can cheat.
We walk around the city. Liba is full of stories and legends about Prague and Jan is very knowledgeable about the history. We visit the Jewish cemetery, a very evocative place, and see the grave of Rabbi Loew, who created the Golem. There is a legend that if you write a wish on a piece of paper and leave it on the grave, he will grant the wish.
The Jewish quarter was built in Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) around the turn of the century. By that time, many of the Jews were assimilated, although that didn't help them in the '40's.
We later go to the coffee shop of the Inter-Continental Hotel, a strange place with overdressed foreigners and Czechs in everyday dress. Liba insists on going there, although we don't know why. She claims she likes the cakes and says it's her treat. During our stay in Prague, things often become a race for the check. Sometimes we win, more often we lose. Somehow I don't feel so bad as in East Berlin.
We hear a fair amount in English in the coffee shop. During the stay in Prague, I ended up hearing a lot of English on the streets. This disappoints me, as I like to think we're the only two Americans here, although that's obviously impossible. 'Go away,' I say. 'This is my adventure!'
On the way out of the hotel, we pass a man whom Jan talks to. He turns out to be Pavel Landovsky, a famous exiled Czech actor now living in Vienna. (He was the farmer with the pig in 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'.) He tells us that Havel is having his private party upstairs. Jan asks if the actor is back for good, but the man is mainly interested in his car, which has broken down. We walk to the Old Town Square, where a festival is about to begin. Although it was planned a while ago as a festival of folklore groups in support of Civic Forum, happy coincidence makes it an inaugural festival.
There are thousands of people in the square. We edge toward the stage, and a Bohemian dance group starts to perform. At one point, a famous singer who hasn't been allowed to sing in 20 years comes on stage. She says a few words and leaves. People call her back and she begins to sing a song. Everyone is quiet and many people put V-for-Victory signs in the air. I look towards Liba and see tears in her eyes.
In one part of the square, a hot air balloon is being inflated. 'Where is the balloon going?,' someone asks. 'If they're lucky, to Vienna; if not, Moscow,' is the reply. Everybody laughs.
All over, people are singing patriotic songs, holding up sparklers, dancing, smiling, walking around. While we're waiting for the animated clock on the town hall to strike, we hear cheers from the part of the crowd back at the stage. We later hear that Havel showed up, said a few words ('I heard you were down here and I thought I'd just come by to say 'Hi''), and left. His performance is just as fast as that of the clock; it takes less than a minute.
We walk toward Wenceslas Square, which is covered with banners, crowded with people. There is a memorial for victims of the government, with many candles, burning or burned out. Under a statue of Wenceslas there are students singing songs from '68. I ask about the large, official-looking building at the end of the square. Is it parliament? Jan says no, it's the national museum. Parliament is behind it, and then the national theatre. There's a joke: 'What is parliament?' 'It's something between a museum and a theatre.'
As we walk back, we pass some students collecting money for the event. But when they try to give them money, they protest. Liba laughs and says they're not used to business. They were giving out tickets as proof of payment, and now that they're out of tickets, they don't know what to do. We eventually persuade them to take our money.
We make it back to the Old Town Square, then to a nearby church where a jazz concert is being played. Before the show the priest makes a little speech, saying that some people might find the performance unreligious, but that God has nothing against jazz. We eat some chocolate that was initially intended for Jan's son. Then, as we listen to the jazz, I look into the peoples' faces. There's bliss, happiness, intensity, peace. There's something about these people that's both innocent and serious. People must take life seriously here; something is at stake.
Liba goes home and Jan, Mark, and I stop at a wine bar by the river. We talk about the future of Czechoslovakia. Jan hopes that the subsidies will disappear. He knows that things will be hard for a while, but that they will get better. I ask if there's any pretender to the throne of Bohemia. Only the Habsburgs, he says. Are there any royalists in Czechoslovakia? Jan laughs. 'No, but maybe you can convince me to be the first.'
We walk back over the Charles Bridge, where more people are singing '68 songs. I remember something Liba said, about Czechs being afraid to call attention to themselves, embarrassed to shout. In the last month, I think, they've certainly disproved that.
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December 30, 1989 - Prague
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More of a day of walking around and impressions, than of any thematic coherence. I wake up late, and walk to the subway station where we're supposed to meet Jan. Mark is already out taking pictures. Out here on the edge of Prague, where the Olympic Hotel is, things don't look unfinished so much as broken down. Can't see too much variety in the shop windows, but I don't go into any shops, so I can't really say. In the street, a tram has become entangled in the overhead cable, and all the other trams are backed up behind it.
I get to the station, and look into a supermarket which looks better-stocked, with some western brands, like Coca- Cola. Strange system - one needs a shopping cart to enter, and when they're all in use, you have to wait until someone leaves before you can enter. I've seen this system before in East German stores. I wait a bit and we meet Jan and Mark.
We take the Metro to the center of town and catch the bus to the outskirts. This is an area of separate houses and small apartment blocks. Jan says it's a desirable place to live. On the bus we speak to a Czech man who says he has a niece in Topeka, Kansas. He hopes to visit her next year, and echoes the refrain I've heard repeatedly (from Liba, too): 'If anyone had told me three months ago what would be happening now, I'd say he was crazy!'
We eat in a small pub, which looks like a country inn, having excellent Wienerschnitzel and potato salad with beer. I ask Jan whether people still fear the secret police. He says, for the first five days, yes, but after that, not at all. Later we walk by secret police headquarters and there's no nervousness. I also ask about the student who supposedly died in the big demonstration of November 17, and whose reported death eventually led to the downfall of the government. He says the student didn't die, but that it was the undisputable fact of the violence, 50 years to the day after the Nazi suppression of a demonstration in Prague, that set everything off. We talk about the role of the students, and Jan says he feels that the students are too self-important, that they incorrectly feel it's they're doing that Czechoslovakia is free, when it's really Gorbachev's doing.
We go visit a nativity scene made entirely of gingerbread, which many people are lined up for, and on the way to the church, we walk by a private house, which surprises me. Apparently a number of people own private houses, or have privately owned apartments. We learn the next day that it may take 10-20 years to get an apartment even if one joins a building cooperative, less if one answers an ad and has something to offer in return. He tells us about one friend who actually bought a building in the historic inner city and renovated it. (I don't know where he got the money.) The real difficulty was in getting the building supplies and in navigating the bureaucracy, since the building was under historic preservation. Interesting that entrepreneurship on that scale (pretty valuable real estate) still exists, but apparently the government welcomes private capital restoring old buildings. Jan also tells us another story about 'The Prague Orgy,' the novella written by Phillip Roth. Some guy (a friend of a friend of Jan's) owns a house in the historic quarter (Jan pointed it out to us). He's known for the orgies he holds there. Jan said his tastes don't run that way, so he was never invited, but his friend was, and so was Roth, who wrote about it. I'll have to get the story and read it. We walk back to the castle through several nice neighborhoods of formerly private houses. A visit to the cathedral, then I go into a souvenir shop to buy some postcards. The shopkeeper charges me 18 crowns when the total price marked on the cards is 12 crowns. Jan gets upset and gives the guy a sermon. He says the guy doesn't understand the difference between free enterprise and cheating. The guy gets very defensive and starts talking about how he's staying open late, etc. We leave, but I don't get my six crowns back.
We go to a restaurant (actually, a beer hall) where a few friends meet us. One is Liba, the others are Joseph, a New York art dealer, and his Czech friend, Katya. I don't mind him, but the others react negatively to him. The problem is that, as an art dealer, he has a tendency to treat beauty as a commodity, and in doing this, shows a great deal of insensitivity to local feelings. He complains about not finding anything nice to buy in Prague. He says he saw a traditional dress in a shop window in Prague, that he wanted to buy for a friend, but that the shopkeeper wouldn't sell it to him. Liba says that the shopkeeper wouldn't sell it to him, rightly, because he wasn't Czech. 'We cry when we put on those clothes,' she says. Perhaps if he had said that his mother or grandmother had come from that village (where the dress came from) they would have sold it to him. Anyway, he has many Czech friends, and seems to know and like Czech culture, but he doesn't help matters by criticizing the Budweis beer, which is actually pretty good. He and Katya have to leave early (she seems to understand English perfectly, but will only speak Czech), and then we go. Before we do, I ask Jan about an acquaintance of an American friend of mine, a Czech mathematician named Kvatel who lives in Montreal. According to Jan, he has a reputation for being a character. He started at the art college, doing ceramics, then became a mathematician. He was instrumental in starting the Prague-Pilsen scooter races, which Jan says are mentioned somewhere in the work of Josef Skvorecky. One day he met a dancer from the Crazy Horse in Paris, and invited her to give a math lecture in Brussels. He coached her very carefully, she gave the lecture, answered the questions with his help, and got a certificate of thanks from the university for giving a guest lecture in mathematics.
After we leave, we go to the Slavia Cafe, a great smoky Art Deco room with a jazz band and filled with people only be described as looking like 'intellectuals' in the most stereotyped sense. Jan greets some of his friends, one of whom has a bandage over his forehead and a patch over one eye. He's not the first person I've seen in Prague with this kind of bandage. Mark wonders if it has something to do with the earlier demonstrations.
At the next table was a woman whom Jan originally thought was an actress in a well-known amateur theatrical company. But he noticed that she was wearing her Czechoslovak tricolor pin backwards, and, when he pointed it out to her in Czech, realized she was a tourist.
We walk to Wenceslas Square. Lots of people are walking around in a good mood. |
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